


Find a Way

by SierraNovembr



Series: Bucky Barnes learns to be loved [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Bucky Barnes, Past Bucky Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Pre-Slash, Team as Family, Tony Stark Bingo 2019, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-02 00:55:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17877989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SierraNovembr/pseuds/SierraNovembr
Summary: Avengers get hurt with unfortunate frequency, and Tony is there for them in ways that Bucky wouldn’t have even considered.[For my Tony Stark Bingo square S3: Domesticity]





	Find a Way

It’s gruesome, when they finally get to Steve. Bucky stands frozen for a moment, trying to understand the scene in front of him. Sam ducks out of the room to vomit, but it isn’t until he hears Iron Man’s low, staticky “fuck” that Bucky can feel his legs again. He surges towards the table they have Captain America laid out on and starts tearing at the restraints around him. These bozos weren’t taking any chances, the restraints look like adamantium and they are _bolted_ to the large metal surface of the table. The smell of Steve’s blood is clinging in Bucky’s throat and for a moment he worries he’ll be following Sam’s example.

Later, after the base is little more than a smoldering heap and Bucky has had the great pleasure of snapping a Hydra officer’s neck, Bucky paces in his bedroom. Steve should be out of medical by now, and Bucky knows he should go check on his best friend. He can’t even blame the reckless idiot this time, though. He wasn’t doing anything risky when he was snatched, and the area had been too crowded with civilians to mount an effective resistance. Bucky _knows_ this, and he knows that the frustration with being unable to _do_ anything more is going to eat away at him.

Finally, he leaves the room. He’s probably exuding a little too much murder if the way that Clint backs away from him in the hallway is any indication, but damned if he can do anything about that.

He stops outside of Steve’s door, forcing himself to take a few deep breaths before facing Steve. He knocks quickly and then pushes his way inside. It’s dark and a little cold inside, two things Steve hates in his living space. He’s not here.

Bucky lets out a frustrated sigh and trudges up to the common area. It’s empty. He’s tempted to give up and ask FRIDAY, despite his general aversion to acknowledging that she knows everyone’s status in the tower, when he hears the music. Bucky follows the soft notes until he comes to the music room at the end of the hall. The doorway is propped open and the song drifting out is familiar and comforting, something he might have listened to with his arms around a dame and the war a distant concern. The playing is flawless and soft, and Bucky pokes his head into the room to see Tony at the keys.

Steve is perched in a nest of blankets and pillows on a small couch. He smiles when he catches sight of Bucky and gestures beside himself with a blanket-covered arm. Bucky slips in, trying to be quiet, but Tony notices his entrance right away.

“Hey Buckaroo,” he whispers. “Make yourself comfortable.” 

Bucky sinks down next to Steve, trying to be as careful as possible, but the idiot huffs in annoyance and flops his bandaged body over to lean against Bucky’s side. He pushes his face into Bucky’s shoulder and says, “He’s amazing, isn’t he?”

Tony hears and makes a face at them. His fingers don’t stop; the melody continues, flowing unbroken into another song and another.

“Yes,” Bucky answers, hoping that his voice is steadier than he feels. “He is.”

*****************

It’s an easy enough pattern to discern after that. Avengers get hurt with unfortunate frequency, and Tony is there for them in ways that Bucky wouldn’t have even considered.

He plays piano for Steve. Clint gets smoothies and snarking to distract him. He reads to Sam when the man breaks an ankle and is restricted to bedrest. Bruce and Thor are rarely injured, but always hungry. It’s easy enough for a billionaire to pick up the tab for the mountains of take-out they order, but Bucky sees the way that Tony ensures their favorites make it to each of them.

Natasha hasn’t been hurt since Bucky joined the Avengers, but he discovers that she and Tony have a standing date at a small coffee shop on Tuesday mornings. He’s not sure what he feels when he realizes that’s where Nat was off to every week. 

Two weeks later, he’s even more unsettled when the feeling gathering in his stomach turns out to be jealousy.

*****************

The fight would have been fair, one on one, which is something that gives Bucky pause. The three men are clearly enhanced and very intent on bashing his face in with the heavy pipe, garroting him, and stabbing him with the blade he can see on the final one, respectively.

He kicks Mr. Garrote, boot planted squarely on the guy’s chest. He leans back to counter-balance the force. Mr. Garrote flies across the alley and lands with a satisfying thud. Bucky spins and uses his metal arm to block the knife thrust towards his torso. That leaves Mr. Pipe an opening, but Bucky manages to twist and take the blow on the back of his shoulder rather than his ribs. The jarring thud makes the breath catch in his chest for a moment before he pulls himself back far enough to reach one of his own knives.

Mr. Garrote is back in business, and Bucky starts looking for an escape route. His pride has never been of the variety that would prevent him from making a strategic retreat from this dank alley they have him cornered in, but they are too close, standing between him and the exit. No fire escapes or dumpsters. Fuck, they’ve been smart about it.

Bucky pulls his control a little tighter around himself. He’s going to get hurt, but he just has to make an opening for himself. 

He engages. Mr. Garrote turns out to be the easiest to take down for good, but by the time he manages it, Bucky is bleeding in half a dozen places and his left eye is swelling. He breaks Mr. Knife’s jaw, but the satisfaction is short-lived as Mr. Pipe bashes his weapon into the back of Bucky’s skull. Bucky feels his gorge rise and the world spins alarmingly.

The ground is a lot closer than before.

He thinks he hears the rumble of a motorcycle and catches the flash of familiar boots before the darkness closes around his vision as easy as slipping underwater. 

*****************

He’s broken. The asset is functioning at sub-optimal performance levels. 

The team gathers around him, ready to be support and comfort and healing and he sends them away. He can’t bear to be taken care of, it feels too much like failure.

Nat is the exception. She knows, she knows so well, what it means to be _useless_. She knows what it is to wait until your body, that shell, can repair itself.

He remembers other times, other missions. Dirty safehouses and cheap motel rooms. He remembers how Natasha would dress wounds he couldn’t reach. The burn of a bullet in his flesh shoulder and the returned favor when he stitched up her thigh. When they had enough time, after the pain dulled, before extraction, they could sleep together. The release of endorphins, the connection of feeling less like a damaged tool for a few moments.

She never wanted anything more that than from him. She wouldn’t want even that much now. But she is still safety. So, when he has three broken ribs, a split scalp, four dislocated fingers, and is more bruises than not, he isn’t surprised when she shows up at the door to the medical wing of the tower.

“I told them I would take care of you. Tony’s going to do his best to respect your privacy. If that’s what you want.” She sends him a knowing glance.

She dismisses the medical staff, despite their protests, finishes dressing his head wound, and resets his fingers. It hurts, but he doesn’t bother to make a sound. It’s…fine. 

She takes him up to his rooms and it’s the same as it ever was, except his room in the tower is much nicer than any place they’d ever had to themselves before. It’s safe, but as his bones and skin knit themselves back together, he notices that rather than waiting to for extraction, everything seems to be waiting on _Bucky_. Except he doesn’t know what it is that he’s supposed to do. He sits in bed and waits.

Tony texts him.

It’s a scattershot of genuine questions about how he’s feeling to what seems to be an electrical engineering lecture parsed out in 140 character increments. He honestly likes the lecture; despite the bizarre delivery medium, Bucky sinks into the simplicity of resistance, capacitance, closing the circuit. He feels like a machine often enough, maybe eventually Tony will start describing the wires and electrons that make up _Bucky_ in a way that makes sense to him.

For a moment, that thought opens up a deep pit of yearning inside him, to be _known_. He swallows against it and texts back a single word.

_Why._

A moment later an audio clip comes through and Bucky clicks it. Piano music floods his room, slightly flat from his phone’s speakers. Bucky slouches down against the headboard, closes his eyes and listens. 

The notes slip around him and Bucky doesn’t understand why Tony _cares_. Tony keeps sending clips and Bucky keeps playing them and he could probably go down and let Tony play for him in the music room. He could go downstairs and let Tony read to him, or make smoothies, or finish that lecture. 

He can’t. Behavior patterns for Tony Stark indicate that comfort would be extended, even to someone like Bucky, but he can’t - 

What if Tony comes to his senses and realizes that Bucky doesn’t deserve comfort? Not for getting his ass beat in some dirty alley. 

It’s safer here in his room.

At least, it is until the moment that Tony actually shows up with chicken soup and an order for Friday to play some terrible movie that Tony loudly insists is a classic. Bucky is still propped against the headboard, his muscles are stiffening up, and Natasha seems to have abandoned him to his fate after all. He doesn’t know what to do, and part of him wants to grab Tony and shake him. He wants to scream at him until Tony realizes that he can’t just keep treating Bucky like this…like he _matters_ to him. Like Bucky is important.

Tony smiles at him and sprinkles oyster crackers in Bucky’s soup. Bucky picks up his spoon and – 

complies.

He closes his eyes, pretends he is savoring the taste of a bland cracker and chicken broth. He pretends he’s not falling for the man beside him, because that would be _awful_ and he knows it’s already too late. He won’t be able to stop now.


End file.
